Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Iron Dome: short-term benefit, long-term catastrophe

Israel's 'Iron Dome' system has performed remarkably well in intercepting about 30% of the 2000 rockets launched from Gaza in the last two weeks. But as a long-term 'deterrence' mechanism it is a total catastrophe for Israel. Apart from the incredible expense - and the fact that the number of rockets that still get through ensure that daily life is no less disrupted - putting your faith in a system like this is an acceptance of permanent cowering of an entire state to a bunch of terrorists.

No other country in the world would accept, even in principle, the concept of the Iron Dome as a long term defence/deterrent, because no other country in the world would accept a situation where it is subjected to continuous unprovoked rocket attacks from a bullying neighbour. Don't believe me? Then read the following from a commenter on Debbie Schlussel's blog this evening:

“Back in mid-June,
during the great Paris weapons show, the Rafael pavilion was absolutely
the busiest around, and everybody wanted to look at the new, exciting,
Iron Dome system, the greatest achievement in rocket defense ever. But
by the end of the show, Rafael hadn’t made a single sale. The Arrow sold
well, other systems did great – Iron Dome wasn’t moving. So they
contacted their big clients, the serious ones, and asked what gives. And
those clients told them no one except Israel has any use for these
things. Because in any normal, sane country, if some hooligans were to
start targeting civilians with rockets – the army would go and kill
them.”

The Obama administration is right now trying to force Israel to stop a ground invasion with the promise of an extra 250 million dollars to pay for more Irone Dome batteries. This is the ultimate indication that Obama believes Israel has to simply allow the Islamist bully to carry on doing what the Islamist bully does best while Israel has to pay for the privilege of only being struck by 140 rockets a day rather than 200. This is back to the mentality of living in a ghetto under the Nazis. Obama is going to 'allow' Israel to have a half-baked defensive capability but no offensive capability. That's like allowing your 'friend' to wear a gum shield to protect him from the school bully but not allowing him to wear boxing gloves.